


Strength Training

by goodnightfern



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Disabled Character, Drug Use, Hypnosis, M/M, Memory Alteration, Nine years is a long time, Nostalgia, Pining, guns and things, historical handwaves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 05:25:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11983092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnightfern/pseuds/goodnightfern
Summary: Miller learns how to write left-handed quicker than Ocelot thought possible.





	Strength Training

**Author's Note:**

> hrgghh i haven't written in a long time and of course the first thing i write is ocelhira from ocelots pov none the less. this is my first mgs fic ever. hell has no room for me.

Miller learns to write left-handed fast. Ocelot hasn’t seen him practice, but he does see Miller pick up a pen and dot down GPS coordinates in a tidy left hand.

The man has been working for sixteen hours straight - Ocelot has been with him for half that time. Bringing him coffee. Warning Snake about Soviet movements and poisonous snakes in the sands. But now Snake is stealing a few hours of sleep - or smoking, most likely, and the radio is silent.

Miller takes off his beret and runs his hand through stiff, flat hair. The man only showers when Snake is on base. Sure, he’s lost half his body, but he doesn’t need any help.

When Miller finally passes out on his desk Ocelot slips back into his bedroom. Rifles through scattered papers, turns over maps to see his straggling scrawls. From illegible smears of ink to something almost passible. His name, over and over again, and what must be the kanji rendering. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. A scramble of ink that looks like the old M.S.F. logo. Single lines of - poetry? Music?

Ocelot pauses at a sound, eyes flicking back to the light in the comms room, but Miller is only mumbling in his sleep again.

Miller moved right into his office when it became clear he would spend the rest of his life chained to his desk anyways. Or rather, Ocelot did the moving while the man himself sweated and stumbled after him.

There’s no stairs in the way. No grates where his crutch might slip through. Miller gave up separating the professional from the personal a long time ago anyways. Even bending him over his desk boosts productivity - messing up his papers only means he’ll have to reorganize them. And while he’s lazy in the afterglow is the perfect time to convince him to make an investment he would otherwise dismiss as a waste of money.

Of course, that’s all up to Snake now, and Snake spends so much time off base Miller has plenty of nights to obsessively practice left-handed writing. Or cry. Ugly choking sobs no one hears. Certainly not Ocelot.

Ocelot drops the notebook. Figures he’ll go for a coffee run. It’s three in the morning, and only a few staff members greet him. The coffee in the mess hall is cold, bitter, and tastes like steel.

By the time he’s back Miller is awake. Rubbing drool off his chin.

“Hope that’s fresh,” Miller, who once re-used the same basket of grounds for three straight days, grunts.

“Only the best for you, dear,” Ocelot says and slips back into his seat. Miller doesn’t even blink at the inane endearment; he’s used to the shit that comes out of Ocelot’s mouth.

Except it actually is good coffee.

“Who the hell approved this?” Miller asks his mug.

“Hmm?”

“This isn’t the stuff we usually get. This - this is -”

“Ethiopian,” Ocelot answers. “My private stash. The food budget is safe, I promise.” For a raging capitalist, Miller’s taste is decidedly proletariat. The Diamond Dogs coffee isn’t bad, per se, just plain. Metallic.

“Personal stash,” Miller mutters, swirling his cup and losing all the heat. “Heh. Been a minute since I had this.” He pauses. “You’ve had this all along? Still?”

“Roasted beans don’t expire, Miller. As long as they’re stored air-tight, kept out of the light, it’ll keep.”

“Just surprised, is all. You, lugging around that coffee for - what is it, six years now?”

It has been a while since Ethiopia. They’d already met before, but since then Miller’s little gang had gained a name and crossed an ocean. Ocelot was bringing Mother Russia’s blessings to the Derg when he found Diamond Dogs in the highlands supporting the People’s Liberation Front. The locals brewed that fine honey wine that made Miller’s lips sticky and yes, the coffee was good. They didn’t get much of it even back then, but a certain general made a gift Ocelot would carry straight to the enemy.

Miller, as it turned out, would put out for good coffee.

Snake crackles in over the radio and Miller wipes the sleep from his eyes before bending to his mic. He’s wincing, though, and Ocelot automatically reaches over a hand to rub some of the tension out of his neck.

Miller stiffens under his touch.

Ocelot digs into the tension. Miller’s left shoulder is overworked from compensation. Even his wrist is swollen, the fingers tight from learning how to cramp around a pencil -

“Ocelot,” Miller hisses, drawing back from the desk. Jerking his arm away from Ocelot’s touch. It throws him off balance, a bit, rocks him in his chair.

“Kaz. Doing all right?” Snake is thousands of miles away.

“I’m fine.” Miller swallows. Licks a bead of sweat off his upper lip, and Ocelot demurely folds his hand back in his lap.

 

 

 

Ocelot would laugh, but that would give him away.

Miller’s trying so hard. Wobbling on his bad prosthetic while tranq rounds bounce harmlessly off storage containers, walls, the floor, anywhere but the target twenty feet away. His left hand is shaking so badly around the tiny Mk 22 his fingers might break. Snake let his little secretary get away with a cupped grip for too long.

At least Ocelot has spent enough time clucking over disordered shelves and wayward cables to keep the staff busy.

He waits for Miller to finally release a strangled snarl before dropping down a ladder, rounding a corner. And my, what a coincidence, they both happen to be right here at the target practice on the medical platform.

Ocelot says nothing. Readies and shoots. Hits the center of the targets Miller has been trying for the past thirty minutes to hit.

“R&D might be able to make a custom stock for you,” Ocelot offers offhandedly, in between reloading. “Something you could brace against your wrist. Course, they couldn’t do anything about your stance.” He cocks his head, imagining.

“Yeah, and then I’ll hide a katana in my cane,” Miller snaps, hoarse. “I don’t work in the field, Ocelot. I make money. I keep you fed and clothed and your spurs polished.”

“And the entire staff of Diamond Dogs is grateful for your efforts.” His spurs are quite shiny.

Miller’s laugh is joyless, flat. “I’m not trying to train anything but my damn left arm.” Another round glances off the side of a distant ladder. “Developing strength and control. Holding a steady hand. Things that would help me, I don’t know, tie my own damn boots every once in a while.”

Ocelot’s aim is off today. Poor circulation in his fingers. Miller puts away his hush puppy to watch Ocelot miss the bullseye by three inches.

“You’ll learn quick enough." Ocelot has always been good at one handed shooting. It's sort of been his trademark for decades, but today his aim just happens to be off. “As I recall, you were always adept enough with your left hand.”

It’s true, though. Ocelot had him tied to his chair.

Miller was still sniveling in Nicaragua. There was no way in Ocelot was taking him along to Havana, the sandinistas were friendly but unsure of what to do with him, and by the end of the fight Miller was crying and mumbling about Snake. So Ocelot tied him down. Just as an exercise. They weren’t fucking yet, but Miller was a dangerous and clumsy drunk.

And Miller, sweating and trashed, had worked his left hand free and jabbed his fingers in Ocelot’s eye. Turned the tables. As per usual. Ocelot still didn’t take Miller to Cuba, but he did bring him cigars that made him cry and run away to South Africa. It was still fun, back then.

Miller stalks away from the target practice area.

Ocelot likes how Miller has turned his limp into something menacing. A slam, a slide, a scrape. A collar turned up, hiding even his hair from this angle.

He’s been working so hard.

Ocelot leaves soon after him. Below the deck, Quiet is blasting The Cure. She frowns at her fingers, hesitantly shaping the signs he’s been teaching her. Sighing, Ocelot hands her a notebook. A pen. Maybe stolen from Miller’s room.

 _XO can’t aim for shit,_ she writes. _Been listening to him for hours._

“You should give him lessons.” Quiet’s good with one hand.

_oh i could teach him a fucking lesson all right_

Ocelot laughs. He’s never once tried to defend the Commander to her. Miller can take care of himself.

 

 

The thing is, there’s no reason why he can’t have Miller anymore. If Ocelot really wanted, he could take Miller down easy. And Ocelot has drugs. Lots of drugs. Good drugs.

What does he do with all these drugs?

Interrogations, of course. He has an extra stash he keeps in his room.

It’d be so easy to slip something in the coffee. Turn Miller incoherent and drooling and so damn suggestible he’d think it was 1980 again. Let Ocelot fuck him slow and sweet and toothy like old times. Miller was pathologically loyal, but whatever happened during the coma stayed there. They were never lovers, no, not even when Miller ground down on his dick or ate him out for an hour or busted a gut laughing when Ocelot dropped both his precious Colts during a rum-fueled exhibition in gun spinning.

Come to think of it, there’s no reason why he, Miller, and Snake can’t make like a sandwich.

Yes. There’s a damn good reason.

He’ll have it, in a moment.

There’s a man on the radio. A name. An equation.

Yes, that’s it.

When it’s over, Ocelot looks down at the drugs. The good ones, the ones he keeps in his room. It occurs to him - not for the first time - that he could smooth another suggestion in there.

He’s never gone through with it. He doesn’t do it today.

Half an hour later, Ocelot is driving from intel to command. Salt wind in his hair, sun too bright.

When he sees Miller, he has a brief moment of - nothing. Miller drops into the seat, huffs something at Ocelot’s driving before pulling out an intel file.

The Soviet-Afghan war has been convenient. In three days, Ocelot will be leaving Mother Base again. The GRU Major will be visiting OKB Zero. Interrogating prisoners that Snake will later be extracting. He won’t let them see his face.

Miller is aware that Major Ocelot is loyal to Mother Russia. He never asks Ocelot about his erratic radio habits, and the secret sits quietly out of sight. Every incoming transmission is tracked, of course, but nothing more than that.

Miller likes to pretend Ocelot is _their_ spy. The reality is more complex than Miller could understand. The concept of doublethink should be easy for a man who inhabits two cultures at once, slipping between red-blooded American to loyal Japanese depending on the client.

Besides, there’s only one -

One reason, that's right. It's all for Big Boss, all for Snake.

All for -

 

 

Snake has taken to driving aimlessly around the base. Miller has added a diamond-studded pin to his beret; Ocelot’s spurs have matching ones.

DD barks up at Ocelot from the passenger seat. He’s a respectable five feet away from Miller, where they’re lounging high up on the support platform after hours of meticulous cataloging to see the sun set.

When Snake waves, Miller comes down to join him. Ocelot slips into the backseat and off they go.

It’s no secret that the more erratic Miller becomes, the more Quiet rides in the helicopter. Ocelot has seen the looks passing between them, and he's also seen the lost look behind Miller's aviators when Snake smiles at her. When Snake lets Huey leave alive. When the kids leave with Eli and Miller sits in their old quarters, holding that little necklace and snapping when Snake tries to speak to him - 

But right now the stars are bright even against the floodlights of Mother Base. Snake parks on a helicopter platform, where the full moon swings down upon them. A hesitant red arm reaches, grabs Miller’s coat.

Miller sits, stiffly.

Snake reaches further. Wraps him in his arm. Miller shudders, but remains straight.

They’re going to forget about Ocelot soon.

Snake will nudge so gently and Miller will fall. They’ll cling together, holding missing limbs, and Ocelot will watch them crash and burn and fling themselves off the edge into the ocean below.

No, Miller will go first. He’ll hurl himself off the side screaming, and Snake’s bionic hand will clutch at nothing. Snake will turn to Ocelot, single eye blank and lost, and -

Ocelot will -

Snake is -

There’s something, something hidden even deeper than those good drugs, it’s in Ocelots quarters and -

Ocelot blinks. Snake and Miller are a lonely portrait against the moon’s orb. Foreheads pressed together.

DD moves against Ocelot, soft and inviting. He’s Snake’s dog, but he remembers the one who raised him. Made him. Ocelot lets him lick his face, slobber on his scarf. Falls asleep with his hands buried in fur.

In the morning Ocelot is somehow back in his quarters. Snake and Quiet have already left. Miller is giving the support unit hell for letting rats slip past their defenses, for putting medical supplies too close to food, for not dotting every i. Chaos breeds confusion. Confusion destroys discipline. And discipline is the foundation of a business, of society, the only reins of the wild human animal -

Miller rants.

Ocelot smiles at the horizon, up two ladders and therefore untouchable. Birds are flying, a rare sight out here, but that’s right. It’s almost fall, now.

“If you got time to nap, you got time to move pallets,” Miller barks. He’s jabbing his cane up in the air, but not so wobbly without it as he once was.

“ _Falco concolor_ ,” Ocelot tells him, pointing. “They breed in the near East, but winter in Madagascar. I figured we’d be too far east of their migration path.”

“Yeah, I’ll give you con color after I ram your ass with a forklift.” Except Miller can’t drive a forklift, and it must be killing him.

“Right there. Look.”

Miller actually pauses. “Those birds?”

“The sooty falcon.”

“Better not build any damn nests here. Are you gonna help me out here, or find something better to do?”

Ocelot operates a forklift. He shifts a few pallets of canned food to one corner, then another. Miller paces, chewing on his pen, orchestrating with his cane. Cases and pallets thunder until a new world order comes trembling out the chaos, and Ocelot has driven in so many circles he’s dizzy.

Snake touches down on the support platform, waving at Miller and the recruits, and no one sees Ocelot slumped over the wheel of the forklift.

 

 

“C’mon,” Miller slurs, crutch crashing to the floor. “I know you want this.”

Ocelot, interrupted, looks up at him. Ocelot was supposed to -

There’s a man on the radio. Waiting.

“And what exactly do you think I want to do? Miller.”

“Don’t - don’t even, Ocelot. I’m not completely blind,” Miller sneers, and leans heavily against the desk. Tie already undone. A flush in his cheeks and liquor on his breath. The sunglasses stay on, they always do.

Snake is on base.

This could have happened any other time. Ocelot would deflect and deny. They both would have forgotten in the morning.

But Snake is on base. The center is already falling apart, and there’s -

Someone is on the radio and Ocelot will know his name soon and he doesn’t have time for this, there isn’t the fucking time, and Snake should be handling this.

Miller is on his lap, wet lips on his neck.

He’s good. He’s always been good.

Ocelot could shove him away. Watch him writhe on the floor. Give him the good drugs. Haul him back to his office.

That would be wise, but Miller’s throat is already under his lips.

Fuck, but he hasn’t had Miller in his hands for a long while. His body has changed since, there’s more to learn - the bunched muscles of his left shoulder, the softening of his belly, the tension at his hips. Ocelot tugs off his clothes and sees it for the first time in months - the mottled scars of his shoulder, the deformed stump of his leg.

“Don’t look. It’s gross.”

It is. The cut on his leg wasn’t done right at all - halfway through the shin, letting it splinter and fester. A little loose skin - grafted from his ass - warps the blunt, crooked edge.

“Disgusting,” Ocelot tells him.

“Makes me wanna puke, just looking at it.”

“I know.” Ocelot touches the stump. Watches Miller shudder, something pass over his face.

Ocelot kisses him. Holds him down. Draws blood with his nails. He won’t kiss his scars. Won’t tell Miller he’s beautiful with or without his limbs. Won’t cradle him in his arms and lick the sweat off his brow and act like the Soviet’s finest and Skull Face and everything hadn’t changed anything in him. That's Snake's job.

After, they lie apart from each other. Miller stares at the ceiling, arm thrown across his face.

“Something’s wrong with Snake,” he says.

Ocelot makes a noise. Rolls over and stares at him.

“I know. Shrapnel in his head. Nine years - god. I knew he’d be off. But I wasn’t expecting this.” Miller doesn’t say what this is. He waves his hand in front of his eyes. Makes little aborted curls with his fingers. “He’s trying to get me to come visit Paz with him. Bring my guitar, cheer her up a bit.”

“What?”

“Guess you never knew her, huh. She was a spy, anyways.” Miller chokes a sobbing laugh, rolls to hide his eyes in his elbow.

Ocelot knows who Paz is, of course. But she’s a part of something he wasn’t there for. Ocelot can see photos and listen to tapes, but he doesn’t know. Palm trees and dreams of Che Guevara. Miller grinning and golden from Snake’s lap, just a blur in the background behind twelve MSF soldiers posing on the beach. A base that looks too much like what they have now, two oceans away.

“Snake’s been examined by the psychiatrists here. Regularly.” Something Miller never bothered to do for himself. “But he’s bound to drift. Nine years is a hell of a time to be in a coma.”

“And if he’s so bad, so unstable, why the hell do we keep sending him out into the field?”

“It’s what he knows. You know better than anybody. The work keeps him stable.”

“Does it? He was radio silent for six hours yesterday. Next thing I know I’ve got thirty loose goats running around on R&D, and when he gets back all he wants to do is go to the fucking animal platform. Bring a - a god damn picnic, like I wanna eat while a bunch of goats are shitting around us. Asks me where Quiet’s gone. He doesn’t even know where he is, Ocelot, and hell if I know.”

“Go look for him yourself, then.” Ocelot leaves him on the bed. Finds his clothes. The good drugs are on the desk, waiting. Miller’s always been easy, like this, but Ocelot declines the needle for himself. He needs to keep watch. He needs to be alert, now.

It’s all coming down. Sooner than he’d thought.

They’ve all lost and lost and lost.

But Miller will be fine, right? Snake will be fine. It’s in their deepest darkness when they find each other. When heaven is lost, they’ll set up shop in hell, and one day -

One day, when it all goes down, they’ll burn together.

Ocelot’s hands are shuddering. He waits. Breathes, clenching the needle, and looks at where the tape he hasn’t played yet is hidden.

The man in the radio is waiting.


End file.
